Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.

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I offer a wide range of guided walks around the city and university. These can be a general introduction to the history and architecture or looking at specific themes and subjects.

I am a Catholic and a historian based in Oxford, where I am a member of Oriel College. My research, for a long delayed D.Phil., is a study of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln in the second decade of the fifteenth century. I also work as a freelance tutor in History and as an independent tour guide.
I was received into the Church in 2005 and am a Brother of the External Oratory of St Philip Neri at the Oxford Oratory.

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Thursday, 15 January 2015

More medieval images of St Hilary

Following on from my recent post here are some more medieval images of St Hilary of Poitiers, courtesy of John Dillon from the Medieval Religion discussion group. Click on the links to view the pictures:

a) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted in an eleventh-century copy of his Vita by St. Venantius Fortunatus (Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine, ms. 48, fol. 31v):

e) Hilary of Poitiers (at left) at the Council of Seleucia and devils inspiring and tormenting the non-Nicene (heretical) bishops as portrayed on the later twelfth-century lintel of the west portal of the église (ancienne collégiale) Saint-Hilaire in Sémur-en-Brionnais (Saône-et-Loire):

f) Hilary of Poitiers treading on the dragon of heresy as depicted by Savalo of Saint-Amand in a later twelfth-century (third quarter) copy of his De Trinitate, De synodis, and Liber in Constantium imperatorem (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin. 166, fol. 3v):

h) Hilary of Poitiers blessing St. Martin of Tours as depicted in a panel of the earlier thirteenth-century St. Martin window (ca. 1215-1225) in the ambulatory of the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:

j) Hilary of Poitiers (at centre) at a council as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 20v; image greatly expandable):

k) Hilary of Poitiers (at right) consecrating St. Martin of Tours bishop as depicted in a panel of the late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century St. Martin window in the cathédrale Saint-Gatien in Tours:

m) Hilary of Poitiers and other bishops fighting heretics as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348) of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 38v):

n) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted by Jean Bandini in a late fourteenth-century book of prayers (payments recorded, 1385 and 1386) made for the Avignonese Pope Clement VII (Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 6733, fol. 30r):

o) Hilary of Poitiers driving out the serpents as depicted in an early fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 242, fol. 32v):

p) Hilary of Poitiers at a council as depicted by Jean Fouquet in his now dismembered mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Étienne Chevalier (1450s; this folio in the Musée Condé, Chantilly [Oise], ms. 71, fol. 36r):

q) Hilary of Poitiers (at centre in the image at left) at the Council of Seleucia as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 138v):